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  “Pretty much.”

  “Come on. You were probably gleeking on someone, or making disgusting noises or gestures or something.”

  “I was not,” he snapped, looking up at me. It was really a shame he had such bad skin. He might not be bad-looking if it weren’t for all those red splotches on his face and neck. “She just hates me, that old witch. I didn’t do anything, and she just starts hollering at me. I swear it.” He grabbed another stray rock and chucked it. He gazed across the field as he took a breath, and I swear it looked like he’d been crying.

  “So what happened then?” We sat facing the school—I guess so he could see if someone was coming out to bust him for skipping.

  He stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his Cowboys jacket, giving me a sideways look. I don’t know why, but I got the feeling he wanted me there. And not in the usual creepy Shiner kind of way.

  “That dumb old woman,” he began. “It’s history, okay, and we were talking about Jim Bowie and the Battle of the Alamo. All I said was that Jim Bowie was a lot like my dad. You know, ’cause they’re both drunks. Ms. Weaver kind of gasps, like she can’t believe I’d say such a thing about our school’s freakin’ namesake. But, okay, he was a drunk.”

  “Jim Bowie?”

  “Yeah. And my daddy. Total alcoholics. But Ms. Weaver got so mad and said it wasn’t true about either, and when I said it was so, she told me to go to the principal’s office. Screw her.”

  “Sucks.” I didn’t know what else to say. What I really couldn’t believe was that Shiner was saying his dad was a boozer as if he were stating that he was a car salesman. It was pretty sad to think that that was his life, but he seemed okay with it. “At least your day wasn’t as bad as mine.”

  “Oh man, what is up with you today? Were those tampons some weird feminist statement or something?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Whoever did that is an awful person, and I hope she totally gets busted.”

  “She? Why ‘she’?”

  He looked past me to the school. “I just mean whoever. Besides,” he continued, “whoever did do it will be sorry if you find out. You really busted out the brute squad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never seen you so mad. Even I was afraid to say anything to you.”

  “Really? Huh.” I guess I’d fooled everyone. Maybe I was learning something about fake confidence. “But, I’m pretty sure I’m still the school’s official biggest loser.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, keeping his eyes on the ground. “You ain’t that bad.”

  The sun was beginning its descent over the maple trees on the other side of the field, and I realized we’d been sitting for a while. I wanted to get going before school let out.

  “Well,” I said, standing up and dusting off my butt, “I guess I better go.” I started walking back toward the school, but stopped after just a few steps. I turned back to Shiner. “You know what?” I said to him. “You’re not that bad either.”

  9

  Are you overly emotional?

  The guy you’ve been crushing on just said your new haircut is “really interesting.” How do you react?

  a) By faking cramps and going home to cry in bed for the next two days. You knew you looked like a freak!

  b) You tell him, “Thank you,” and agree that the new style is interesting and unique.

  c) By demanding to know exactly what he means by “interesting”? Is he insulting you?!

  I pounded across our front yard through crabgrass and sprouting daffodils, and immediately noticed our Texas flag jerking in the wind. It hadn’t been hung since Dad left a few months ago. He used to put it up every morning on his way to work and take it down after dark. Sometimes I’d help hold the flag, being extra careful that it didn’t touch the ground. Once, when I was little, I let the corner touch the grass, and I was sure we were going to have to burn the whole thing. But Dad had only winked at me and said, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  I knew no one would be home—Mom was still at the bank, and Elisabeth was running somewhere like she did every day after school. I was looking forward to crawling in my bed, shutting the blinds, pulling the comforter up over my head, and hiding there for the rest of the evening.

  I pushed open our ancient oak front door and immediately noticed something was different. For as long as I could remember, that door had always made a ruckus when we opened it. In the months before Dad moved out, Mom had nagged him every week to oil it, but he never got around to it. He always said he would, but then he’d concentrate on other things like the loose brick we always tripped over on the front steps, the starter on the lawnmower, or the latch on Mom’s bedroom window. It wasn’t like he wasn’t fixing anything—in fact, he loved repairing things. It just seemed like he fixed everything but. Dad even told Mom where the WD-40 was so she could fix it herself. It became such a big deal that I even offered to do it. Elisabeth called me a brownnoser, but it seemed easy to do. Mom told me not to bother. A couple of days later, Dad was gone, and Mom hadn’t mentioned it since.

  Even though I never paid attention anymore to the squeak, I knew instinctively that it was there. But when I opened the door that day, the silence of it was louder than the squeak. And that could only mean one thing:

  Dad was home.

  He hadn’t been there since before Christmas; our yard was still covered in traces of brown leaves that weren’t raked for the first fall since I could remember.

  Mom and Dad never fought in front of us, not once. It was always in their room, door closed. For the longest time I didn’t know what was going on. One evening, when they first started going in there a lot, I searched for Mom. I had a whim to bake cookies, and only she knew where the vanilla extract was. I tried the closed bedroom door, but it was locked.

  “Where’s Mom?” I’d asked Elisabeth.

  “Where do you think?” she had responded mindlessly, stretched across the living room floor. The reflection of MTV images danced across her glazed eyes.

  “Their bedroom door is locked,” I’d said. Then it hit me, and my first thought was, Gross! “You mean they’re . . .”

  “God, Sara. Grow up,” Elisabeth had said. “They’re fighting. Again.”

  After that, I noticed how often their bedroom door was closed. At first, it was only once every couple of weeks. Then every week. Several times a week. Then one day, Dad was gone. We never saw him leave, never even saw him packing his things away, not one box. Mom had taken us to visit our aunt and cousins in Cedar Hill, and by the time we got home late that evening, all of Dad’s stuff was gone. I didn’t even realize right away that he had left for good.

  Mom had sat at the kitchen table drinking tea, and I had snuck in their room to look around. It was weird; Dad had chosen this house in particular because the master bedroom faced west. He didn’t want the morning sun to disturb Mom’s “beauty rest—not that she needs it.” When I went in their room I saw that pictures from their dressers were gone—ones of me and Elisabeth, some of Gram, one of the whole family hiking at Big Bend two years ago. I started to realize Dad wasn’t just gone on a long hunting trip—he was really gone. There was a blank spot on the wall, and it took me a moment to remember that it was once covered by a picture of Gram on her wedding day. In the bathroom, Dad’s side of the dual sinks and mirrors was completely cleared of razors and shaving cream, toothbrush, comb, the pocketknife he kept in the drawer with his wallet and watch, all gone. The toothpaste marks were still in the sink, from brushing his teeth that morning and the days before. I looked at it, thinking, Once it’s washed, it’ll never get dirty again. I stood looking at the cream-colored countertop, imagining Dad standing there, shaving with the old-fashioned shaving cream and brush I bought him as a Christmas gift when I was in fifth grade and that he’d used ever since.

  Look, it’s not a big deal. Most kids I know don’t live with both their parents. The point is, on the
most horrific day of the school year, in the most horrific semester of my life, I came home and the door didn’t squeak. With the squeak gone, it felt like part of my family’s past had been erased, and I didn’t know how to handle that.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  I dropped my bag in the entry hall and walked through the living room, where the heads of three of Dad’s prize bucks still hung on the wall, black glassy eyes staring into vacancy. I don’t even remember Dad bringing them home—that’s how long they’d been there. I usually didn’t even notice them, but with the door now silent, I felt hyper aware of the house. I heard the back door click shut and heavy footsteps on the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

  “Hello?” I said again.

  “Sara? It’s Dad,” he called back as I turned the corner into the kitchen. He carried a box marked camping equip, and his cheeks were pink from the warming spring air, making his smile brighter and seem friendlier. “Hey, baby girl,” he said, setting the box down and spreading his arms out to me. I stepped into them tentatively, mindful of my little breasts touching his chest.

  “Hey, Dad. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh,” he said, dropping his truck keys onto the counter. “Just getting a few things out of the attic.”

  “Mom will be mad if she sees you here.” I regretted it instantly, even if it was true.

  “I know,” he said, eyeing me closely. “That’s why I came now, when I thought everyone would be out.” He scratched at the day-old stubble on his cheek—he actually hated shaving and only did it for Mom. She used to refuse to kiss him until he’d shaved off the prickly hairs. I wondered if he still had the old-fashioned shaving set I gave him or if he had discarded it, no longer needing to bother. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How’s school?”

  I let out one of those quick, sarcastic laughs. As in, If you only knew. But I said, “Fine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes, sir,” I responded, looking down at my shoes. “It stinks like always.”

  “Well, come here, sit down. Tell me what’s the matter.”

  “It’s nothing, Dad,” I said, still standing. “It’s just school. Nobody likes it.”

  “You know, Sara,” he said, resting his hand on my shoulder. “I know we don’t talk much anymore, and I know we haven’t seen much of each other lately, but I’m still here, and you can talk to me about anything you want. No matter what it might be.”

  “Dad.” I was completely not comfortable talking to him about this day. Instead, I said, “Does Mom know you’re here?”

  “You think it’s okay if I get a few more of my things out of storage?” He said it kind of like he was questioning me, and it made me feel like absolute dirt. I mean, it seemed weird that he would have to ask permission to do anything, especially to come into the house he had picked out.

  “Sorry, Dad,” I said. “It’s just that, you know how Mom gets when anything unexpected happens.”

  “I know. But don’t worry about your momma. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes. Oh, baby girl,” he said, ruffling my hair. “Don’t you worry too much. Life isn’t just school. Only a small part of it. How’re your grades?”

  I shrugged. “I bombed a math quiz today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Systems of equations,” I confessed. “I’m terrible at them.”

  “Well,” he said, picking up his keys and jiggling them in his palm, “who isn’t?” He smiled at me again, and his eyes looked tired but sweet. He had the bluest eyes in our whole family. Elisabeth’s were blue too, but not like Dad’s. I had always wished I had eyes like his, but I got Mom’s brown ones instead. “Something else bothering you?”

  He was making me nervous, standing there like he didn’t have a thing to worry about. “Mom’s gonna be home soon.”

  “Wait a sec,” he said, glancing up at the round brass clock on the wall we got from Tuesday Morning. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  “I left early today.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? What’s this all about?” His voice turned stern, his eyes fixed on me.

  I sighed. I wanted to tell him—I needed to tell someone—but I had no idea where to begin. “It’s a long story.”

  He nodded his head and looked down at his palm, rubbing his thumb across it. “Tell you what. How about you and me go get some early dinner. Luby’s has Salisbury steak tonight. What do you say?”

  Dad’s old Ford pickup had a sticker of a kid peeing on the Chevy symbol on the back windshield that Mom had despised. I thought it was gross, too, but I also secretly liked the rare moments when Dad was crass. I was also the only one in the family he joked around with or did outdoorsy stuff with—like hanging the flag and even going to the shooting range. Once a year, Dad went hunting in the mountains of Montana or down to Mexico with a couple of his buddies, and he started going to the shooting range every Saturday two months before his trips. He used to take me with him, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why I liked it so much. I’m no fan of hunting, and I’d never even want to hold a gun, but there was something about the indoor shooting range that I liked. I loved wearing the big earphones, and Dad always let me hold the button that whizzes the paper torso target back that shows how well you shot. I’d take those home with me, along with a couple of the fat, red shotgun shells. I loved those plastic shells and would sometimes carry them around in my pocket all week until we went again. It made me feel like we had a special thing going that the girls—Mom and Elisabeth—couldn’t understand.

  Dad and I hadn’t been to Luby’s in months. It used to be our thing, before he moved to an apartment in Abilene. When he had first left, he’d come around every so often to see Elisabeth and me; it was always when Mom was working late or when she took a day trip to some seminar in the Panhandle. Elisabeth is always running somewhere or at some classmate’s house working on some wonderful project. So, Dad and I would go to Luby’s, a cafeteria Elisabeth and Mom would never tolerate. Mom said she quit cafeteria lines when she graduated from high school, and Elisabeth simply said the food stunk. Dad and I loved it. The truth is, I’d probably die if anyone important from school saw me going in there, but I’m always the youngest one by about sixty years. Sometimes Dad and I’d talk about stuff—my crappy math grades, a Razzie movie Arlene and I were trying to find—and sometimes we didn’t talk about anything. We’d just sit there and eat quietly, and the ladies who filled up our iced tea glasses always smiled brightly at Dad and asked him how he was doing and such. I think they were flirting with him, which made me uncomfortable and proud at the same time.

  “So,” Dad started as he took a long gulp from his tea—he liked it extra sugary. “How’s Arlene? You two up to no good?”

  I hesitated before shoving a forkful of mashed potatoes with cream gravy in my mouth. “We’re up to no nothing.” Which I knew didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t know what to tell him.

  “Well,” he said. “You get busier the older you get.”

  “I’m not busy.”

  “Well. Come out with it, then.”

  “It’s long and complicated,” I said wearily. “And I don’t have the energy.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to just be out with it.” He cut his Salisbury steak, then laid his knife across the top of his plate.

  “Anyway. I’d have no idea where to start.”

  Dad chewed thoughtfully. “Arlene do something to rile you up?”

  I sighed. “Yes, sir. Not to mention the rest of the school.” I pushed my food around on my plate. “Dad? Back when you were in high school, were there popular kids who were nauseatingly perfect?”

  “I suspect there’ve been popular kids since the beginning of the schoolhouse,” he said, looking off toward the dessert cart. “They’re nothing new. Is that what’s been bothering you? A bunch of popular kids?”

  “A little. I don’t know.” We sat for a moment. And then I said, “It just seems like they’ve got it so easy. And it seems like popula
r people can only breed popular kids. Plus, they’re always gorgeous, athletic, and smart, too. It’s like they’re all a part of this system that’ll never let outsiders in. These people, Dad, they have everything.” I realized I had started to raise my voice there at the end a little bit, but when I looked around, no one seemed to have noticed. Dad nodded his head slowly. “I know it’s totally generic to be jealous of them, but it’s not fair. What’s wrong with wanting to be like them?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. I mean, in all the stupid magazines they’re always telling us to be ourselves, to not care what people think, to love the body we have and all that.”

  Dad looked up at me, his mouth tight.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that they tell us to be ourselves, but who wouldn’t want to look like the girls in those same magazines, wearing cool clothes and having perfect hair all the time? And like actresses, too. Did you see the Academy Awards?” I asked, knowing full well he didn’t. “They are all so perfect, and I know they’re all prettied up for the event, but still. You can’t deny they’re gorgeous.” Okay, even I could tell I might be on a whining track now, but sometimes with Dad, it’s easy to get going. He says so little that he makes me want to fill the silence.

  “Yep,” he said, leaning back in his chair and loosening his belt one notch. “Yep, I guess I know what you mean. I remember when I was in high school, a little bit older than you, there was this one fella who was real popular. The girls were always slipping anonymous notes in his locker, and people seemed to like him just because he was good in sports. Then he got voted Valentine King at the dance, and he didn’t show. He probably figured the kids would think he was an arrogant jerk if he didn’t show, but they didn’t. Seemed to make them like him more.”

  “See what I mean? They get away with everything.”

  “Well,” he said, “the thing is, not everyone wants that. When you’re popular, people think they have you pegged. And that’s not very fair. There’s more to people than what they look like. Sometimes they could have a hundred friends but feel like they’ve got no one to confide in. Things aren’t always what they seem. Don’t you forget that.”